Sunday, September 27, 2009

Here is another painting which came along with the skull sketches. Talk about complimentary colors!

I had my friend Iva pose for this one. It started out as a vampire drawing and sort of evolved into this raging medusa-like creature? Don't know if that's a good thing or not. Again, really bright colors, which I love but do not normally use.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

I let this go for a week or two, so here is a few things that I have been working on.

I painted this last week while working at the South Street Body Graphics with Mony... it was pretty dead so I found a skull cast and did some acrylic sketch/studies to pass the time. I got my one and only issue of Tattoo Artist magazine, reading up on Jeff Gogue and admiring the way he paints skulls. He uses oil mostly, so acrylic was the next best (and portable) thing. I did one with mostly blue and another with pink and green. I'm not sure why I all of a sudden have an urge to use complimentary colors, but I'm diggin the freedom of painting that I missed! It was very theraputic. I feel like I have lost that freedom and need to get it back. I need to work on SLOWING DOWN and not wanting to finish so quickly. It's weird how everyone makes comments about my ability to work so fast, but when I am painting, I get so lost in what I am doing that before I know it, I am "done". Looking at these now, they are far from finished, but figured that I would just leave them as sketches and move onto more.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

I am off work today. Feels good until I went to go pay my bills. Only have about 1200-1400 per month in bills, and only making about 300 a week... this isn't good at ALL! I hope that when I start tattooing this will all change. I hate being broke. I feel stoked when I put cash in the bank, until it comes right out for bills. FUCK!

I started another flash sheet yesterday at the shop... it was fairly dead again until after dinnertime a group came in for some "In Loving Memory" tattoo and some girly stuff - stars and butterfly. Wish it was busier, but I guess with the slow season approaching fast, looks like I need to get this flash set done and out there. I need to HUSTLE YO!

Here is the flash sheet so far, just close ups.... talens ink on cold press watercolor paper 11 x 14. There is also a Mary in there but I forgot to take a pic of that! Will post more tomorrow when I work on this again. Today is reserved for linework!

Sunday, September 6, 2009

It is officially Labor Day around 12:20am and I will be heading into the shop over in NJ around noon and pick up a fellow artist along the way. I worked at No Ka Oi today and started another sketch for a chest piece design. It was slow today so a good day to just sketch. i also Witnessed a "Naked Bikeride" down South Street. and yes... everyone was NAKED! On top of that, a wedding party taking photos in the graffitti-wridden alley across the street from the stop, and a bunch of Peonies. Keep in mind that I only drew one side of this. I hope to put a dent in some flash painting at the NJ shop since I will have space to work.

Enjoy. More to come tomorrow following the long painting session at work.

The shop wasn't that busy yesterday. The school year begins the slow season... so I spent most of my 12 hour shift just working on this sketch for a painting and taking some reference photos for it. Pardon the non-contrast on the picture, it was taken with my camera phone and I am currently san photo-editor.

Another thing I didn't get into was my bio picture. This one was taken at the National Tattoo Association Convention this past April of 2009. This year the convention was held in Concord, NC. This picture depicts the most fun night ever! Art Fusion! I had the opportunity to work next to some awesome tattoo artists and share paper with them for creating something fun and interesting, all for a benefit auction. The artists who I worked with were Nick Chaboya, Rodney Raines, Judy Parker and Rich Ives, not to mention many others that were drawing on the other side of the ballroom in black and grey. I hope to do it again next year! Here is that photo along with a few more!

Sorry for all the images and stuff, most of the recent posts I will be putting up will be playing catch-up with this blog and getting everyone up to date with what I have been doing.

So it's been a while since my last post. I have been drawing like crazy trying to get another flash set together and work at the Tattoo shop. I have to say that this past week has been the most mentally exhausting week for me in this Apprenticeship. One more year to go... i just need to keep telling myself this.

I've posted a caricature/cartoon of my friend Carla Hopkins, also an artist at the shop. i've also put up there a dragon in progress painting, and some clips of the second flash set.